


A Certain Moment

by Miri1984



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: M/M, but without the exacting structure, sort of a five times fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-17
Updated: 2019-05-17
Packaged: 2020-03-06 19:26:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,384
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18857554
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Miri1984/pseuds/Miri1984
Summary: It's always hard to pin down the point where a crush becomes something more. Martin reflects.





	A Certain Moment

If Martin could have caught the exact moment he was too far in to back out, he would have stopped himself.

He tells himself that, at least. Probably a lie, though. Lying to himself has always been easy enough and he doesn’t have any magic powers to detect them aside from his own inner certainty that nothing good can ever happen, even if he wishes for it with all his heart.

 

#

 

It could have been the first day he saw Jon, of course, although Martin would never consider himself as someone who falls in love at first sight. He’d been assigned to microfiche, that day, something he enjoyed, trawling through old newspapers from the 1850s, looking for references to… he couldn’t remember who, although he thought it had something to do with the Fox sisters.

“Are you done with that?” the voice behind him was the kind of educated that used to set Martin’s teeth on edge, the kind he associated with failed job interviews and grave discussions with his mother’s doctors, impeccably polite, beautifully rounded vowels. He was about to turn and snap at whoever this was, seeing as there were at least three other microfiche machines that were sitting empty in various corners of the library, when a long, white fingered hand reached past him and tapped his tea mug.

The tea inside was cold, and had been sitting there for a good twenty minutes, untouched. Martin blinked and turned to see a thin faced man, age not easy to guess, with a sweep of dark hair peppered with grey falling over one eye.

“I’m sorry?” he said.

“Your mug?” the other man said, slightly exasperated now. “I’m going to the kitchen.” He had his own mug in one hand and Martin blinked.

“Oh. Um. Yes. Thanks.”

The man scooped the mug up and left. Martin watched him go for longer than was strictly necessary.

 

#

 

It could have been the time Jon helped him with his Latin.

Martin is resourceful, always has been, and when he got the job at the Institute he knew he was going to have to do a lot of catch up. He knew his way around a library, he’d not been a bad student, when he’d been able to be at school. In fact, he’d been a bloody good one, and he knew how to use the internet and he knew, better than anyone might have suspected, how to lie.

But he shouldn’t have been expected to know an entire dead language. Well. Okay maybe he should have been expected to know an entire dead language, everyone else seemed to know it. He knows the man’s name is Jon, now, he gleaned it from Tim, who of course got to know the new guy as soon as he walked in the door. Tim always has an eye out for new blood, and usually tries to make them feel welcome, although in this case he’d just rolled his eyes. “He’s an ass,” he said, then mollified it a little. “A good one, but still.”

In any case he wasn’t exactly struggling when Jon wandered past his desk and happened to glance at the computer screen.

Nosy of him, Martin thought, also relieved that he was actually doing work and hadn’t given in to the urge to check twitter. Not that Jon was his boss.

“Are you translating the Vanser text?” he asked.

“Uh, no… not precisely, just uh… the Archives wanted me to do a few of the more… um… esoteric passages and…”

Jon was frowning at his computer screen, then started to tut under his breath. “I don’t know where you studied your conjugations,” he said, although the tone wasn’t accusatory, “but this phrase here shouldn’t be referring to…” and Jon simply… reached his arms around Martin’s shoulders and started typing, moving words, and correcting a few rather crucial tense based errors that would have given Elias and Gertrude very much the wrong impression of when exactly a certain monster made of flesh and weapons had attacked a fourth century British monastery.

“Um,” Martin tried to speak as Jon typed, but he was absolutely enclosed by Jon’s arms. A faint smell of cigarette smoke and some sort of citrus based cologne assaulted Martin’s nostrils, and he could feel the heat of Jon’s chest against the back of his chair. As Jon finished up the last of his corrections he turned his head and gave Martin an apologetic look.

“I don’t think the Institute is keen on tense errors,” he said.

“Uh. Thank you? I must have … just been tired. I guess.”

Jon’s lips twisted a little. “Not exactly rocket science,” he muttered, then patted the back of Martin’s chair and left before Martin could say anything further.

 

#

 

It could have been when he realised Jon was going to be his boss.

There was a brief surge of resentment, which surprised him, considering he honestly had no qualifications compared to Jon, definitely none compared to Tim. He’d resigned himself to Jon going down into the Archives and leaving the rest of them up here in research to… research. Whatever. Do a job that kept him fed (barely) and his mother alive (also barely). Really if it wasn’t for the change in pay going down there would be a demotion. Everyone told spooky stories about Gertrude, that was for sure, although Martin had brought her a few cups of tea in his time and had never had any complaints.

Then he found out that he’d been offered an archival assistant job alongside Jon, and Tim, and he’d felt a warm rush at the thought that perhaps Jon had asked for him, and he had turned it over in his chest and realised he may very well have a problem.

 

#

 

It could have been the first time Tim told him he was an idiot.

Well, not the first time Tim told him that. Tim was prone to call a lot of people idiots, in that charming way he had, tilting his handsome head on one side, smirking his bright white smile and letting out that small huff of laughter that was at the same time mocking and inviting. It was affectionate, when Tim insulted you. He liked you, and everyone liked Tim, so you didn’t mind it when he told you you were a daft-assed cunt or an unworthy besom or a wooden spoon or some other insult he insisted his grandma used to use on him. This time, though, Tim seemed serious.

“Martin seriously,” he said, over drinks. “Jon’s an asshole. He’s not worth your time.”

“What?”

“You’re pining. It’s not healthy.”

“Pining? I don’t know what…”

“Oh my god, Martin. Are you telling me you haven’t even noticed? I think I owe Sasha a fiver.”

“For what?”

“You’re an idiot, Martin. And you deserve better.”

 

#

 

Who defines better, though, when it gets down to it?

 

#

 

(It was only after Tim died that it occured to Martin - a gift of the Beholding, perhaps, to drive the point home, or just a symptom of his own… progress - that perhaps Tim had meant himself, and Martin had found it in himself to cry.)

 

#

 

Perhaps it was the first time Jon had actually needed him, panting and desperate and bleeding in the tunnels, running from worms that made Martin’s hands shake and his eyes blur with panic, and Martin had abandoned him because he couldn’t face that again, couldn’t bear to be near the silver, slivering things that had been his captors for so long. Martin failed him, and fell victim to his own cowardice, and realised that he didn’t deserve this, really. He was just as bad as he’d always thought, just as useless, because he’d run when someone he… someone he cared about was in danger. How do you live with yourself after that?

The answer to that was never going to come easily.

 

#

 

It was too late by the time he died. Of that, at least, he was certain. And so much further too late when he came back.

 

#

 

_Eyes downcast, shoulders slumped, none of Martin’s habitual cheer. Two simple words, the weight of years of feeling behind them that Jon had willfully ignored._

_“You died.”_

_Jon knows the precise moment it happened, for him._

_Of course he does._


End file.
